Faux amis

Faux amis translates to false friends. How did I come across this? Two weeks back, a friend asked me "So, what is the formation for?". I went "huh?". There was no drill or parade that day. Then, why is he asking me about formation?

Well, my friend had heard about me attending a training. In French, formation translates to training. As there are many common words (with different pronunciation) in English and French, my friend assumed formation also means training in English.

There are many cases where you think similar sounding word has the same meaning in a different language. But it may not true. This is called faux amis.

If you are interested in knowing more about "faux amis", click on this link.



Comments

  1. Harish P INovember 22, 2011 at 7:39 AM

    There are lots of them in Malayalam and Tamil. I think better not to deliberate on it. :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. MadhulikaNovember 22, 2011 at 11:55 AM

    It was really 'new' to me..
    Thanks for sharing :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. NonaNovember 22, 2011 at 12:51 PM

    @Harish - Unless you can share these on a public forum, don't even try it. ;)

    @Madhulika - :) My pleasure.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sujatha SathyaNovember 23, 2011 at 1:21 PM

    learnt a french word

    ReplyDelete
  5. NonaNovember 23, 2011 at 2:44 PM

    @Sujatha - Mission accomplished. The idea of French Lessons is two-fold - write about what I learnt and my friends to learn it too. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment